Random Excellence: Cody Cobb

Paired photos by Cody Cobb from the series "Mojave"

If you're interested in landscape you'll want to pay a visit to the website of Cody Cobb, who is self-described only as "a photographer based in Seattle, Washington," born in 1984 in Shreveport, Louisiana.

I had never heard of him before yesterday, when a reader named Fernando mentioned him in a comment (thanks). But I enjoyed visiting his site and admired his work, which combines creativity and tastefulness. Fernando said, "how challenging [it] is to create landscape photos that at the same time are moving, feel real, subtle and not overly cooked."

I wasn't especially convinced by "South" (apart from the marvelous first photo, of the horse), but every other series offers pleasures. He has a real feel for bleak, open land, and especially for the play of tone (for example the geodesic dome over the hilltop), and light (you won't miss the ones I mean). Pay him a visit if you get a chance and see what you think.

Mike
(Thanks to Fernando)

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Playing with light
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dennis: "Very nice. So much landscape photography is the same. This is clean (though bleak) and new. My favorite is 'Panamint Valley' which I did not see in any of the portfolios, but shows up under 'Prints.'"

Nikhil Ramkarran: "Some of Cobb's images make me shiver. Amazing. And I don't typically like landscapes."

Comments

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Excellent! Cody's work is right up my taste ally. Finding irony, incongruity, ambuguity, and humor in landscapes is the essence of "seeing" with a camera, at least to me. By his list of showings and pubs (none familiar to me) I'd say he has a following.

Thank you Fernando, and Mike, for calling out Cody's work.

[Dave Levingston]

Good work. Interesting that "South" was my favorite.

[Michael Perini]

Thanks, it's beautiful work.
Taken as a whole it is a little bleak of my taste, but certainly nice work.

[Carsten Bockermann]

Make sure not confuse him with the fabulous Jodi Cobb of NatGeo fame.

[Nathan Degargoyle]

A lot of his photos look as though anyone could have taken them. They seem to owe more to the landscape than the photographer. But the others are wonderful and show the artistry you are celebrating.

[Stan B.]

Lotta good stuff there!

[Fernando Terrazzino]

Happy that you liked it Mike. Always a reader, I rarely comment, this is my high note of 2017 then, so in the words of George Costanza, "that's it for me".

:-)

[greg]

wow ... this stuff really stands out in a world full of forgettable images

[greg]

... and yes ... "south" really did it for me also

[David Dyer-Bennet]

'Mojave' for me, especially that last with the night sky overhead.

[Mim]

Thanks for the recommendation, I love his work!

[Inaki]

I agree with you. Looks good.
But, apart from the horse photo, I have to say that most of landscape photography has started to look a bit too stock photo. Perhaps my problem is the circling intro screen from windows 10, which pulls from the interwebs photos following your tastes.

I do think that computing world [mobile, desktop, laptop, et all] has abused a bit too mucho of landscape photography.

[Ram]

Thanks, Mike. I loved the photo of the horse so much that I ordered a print right away.